Sun Life Ins. Co. v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 02 May 1900
• Citation: 56 S.W. 668,108 Ky. 408
• Parties: SUN LIFE INS. CO. v. TAYLOR. [1]
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

56 S.W. 668

108 Ky. 408

SUN LIFE INS. CO. v. TAYLOR. ^[1]

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 2, 1900

Appeal from circuit court, Jefferson county, common pleas division.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Nettie Taylor against the Sun Life Insurance Company on a policy of life insurance. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Strother & Gordon, for appellant.

Henry H. Lyon, for appellee.

PAYNTER J.

The appellant issued a policy of insurance to Robert P. Knox on his life, and, being indebted to the appellee, Nettie Taylor he assigned it to her, the indebtedness exceeding the amount of the policy. The fourth clause of the policy provides that it shall be void "if the insured dies in consequence of his *** own criminal action." The twelfth clause of the policy reads as follows: "If the insured shall die three or more years after the date hereof, and after all due premiums shall have been received by the company, this policy shall be incontestable." The real question involved on this appeal is the interpretation of these provisions of the policy. One of the defenses to the action was that the insured died in consequence of his own criminal action, and therefore the policy is void. On the trial of the case the insurance company offered to prove that the insured assaulted a man, thus putting the man's life in peril, and in his own necessary self-defense the party assaulted slew the insured. The court refused to allow the appellee to introduce the evidence. It is insisted that the twelfth clause of the policy, which we have quoted, does not render it incontestable where the insured died in consequence of his own criminal action; that the parties did not intend by that provision of the policy to render unavailable a defense based on a violation of law which was made a breach of the policy by its terms, but that the provision as to the incontestable nature was that it should not be contested for misrepresentations in securing it. The language providing that the policy should be incontestable does not restrict it to any particular grounds of contest, but it is broad and comprehensive enough to embrace any and every defense which might have been made to it before the expiration of three years. To say that it has reference to one defense, and not to another, is writing into the policy terms which the very language of it excludes. In construing a contract, the whole must be taken together, in order to determine the intention of the contracting parties. It is not reasonable to suppose that a party would take out a policy of insurance with the view of committing suicide, or to lose his life by some criminal action, three years after the delivery of the policy. Neither would it be supposed that he would attempt to practice a fraud upon the insurance company in that way. Forfeitures are not favored by the law. The insured is never permitted to select the terms used in a policy of insurance and the rule is that in construing a policy wherein its terms render doubtful its meaning a construction must be given which is favorable to the party insured; and, in addition thereto, if the policy contain inconsistent or contradictory provisions, force must be given to those that sustain, rather than to those which forfeit, the contract. McMaster v Insurance Co. (C. C.) ...